Monday 5 December
There is no doubt about it, the ladies of Fulham & Chelsea WI will definitely have the best wrapped Christmas presents this year, thanks to the lovely JANE MEANS, author, presenter and designer, and doyenne of wrapping and ribbons! In addition to her Gift Wrapping School, Jane has also provided a luxury gift wrapping service for Selfridges, Dior, Ralph Lauren, Chanel, and Country Living Magazine. It was fascinating to watch her wrap the most awkward of packages with ease, and gave us lots of inspiration for how to make gifts look extra special. We also had our Annual Meeting, and, following an excellent President’s address, we re-elected our committee, and finished off the evening with a mince pie competition – well done Katrina!
Monday 7 November
A huge thank you to the celebrated author, illustrator and cartoonist, ANNIE TEMPEST, who travelled up from Norfolk to speak to us on Monday evening. It was a lovely evening, and Annie painted a vivid and moving picture of her early life in both South Africa and Yorkshire, and shared with us the fascinating story of how she discovered and developed her talent, and how she is still learning and trying out new skills – including her new love, sculpting. An inspiration to us all!
If you’d like to see more of Annie’s work, do visit her website, www.tottering.com Her cartoon, Tottering-by-Gently appears weekly in Country Life magazine.
Monday 3 October
We were delighted to welcome Tony Round of The Fostering Network, and brilliant foster carer Ruth, who took the time to come along to our meeting and tell us about the work they do, the challenges they face and all that they’ve achieved. This included successfully campaigning to change the law that meant those in care can remain with their foster carers until the age of 21, rather than having to leave on their 18th birthday. It was shocking to learn that there are some 81,000 children in care in the UK in any one day, and they need 9,000 carers just to cope with demand in London alone. So the message we all took from this evening is to spread the word among our friends and colleagues and to encourage others to find out more about fostering – you never know how you might be able to help. https://www.thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/
Monday 5 September
We take our chocolate tasting seriously at Fulham & Chelsea, as you can see, and we had a fun and very informative meeting with COCOA RUNNERS this month. Spencer Hyman, one of the founders, explained how they source premium beans directly from small farmers who value provenance and quality. These “bean-to-bar” chocolate makers manufacture in small batches and maintain high standards. He also educated us on just what goes into craft chocolate as opposed to the household brands we see on supermarket shelves every day – and the latter wasn’t pretty! The tasting was delicious of course, and very surprising, though the 100% cocoa sample was not for the fainthearted.
Monday 1 August
“You can never cross an ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of shore“ – so began our brilliant speaker NATALIA COHEN last night. Despite a small hitch with an unfortunate room double-booking, we packed in downstairs to hear Natalia’s inspiring, thought-provoking, amusing and downright impressive story of the coxless four’s epic journey across the Pacific, from San Francisco to Cairns, Australia, which they successfully completed in January 2016. Making herself heard against the cacophony from a busy pub, a hissing espresso machine, and an adjoining open plan kitchen serving dinner for 20, she kept us riveted. Six women, 257 days, two world records, 8,446 miles, friendly – and not so friendly – sharks, 40ft waves and a life-changing experience. Not only that, but a significant sum of money raised for two charities – Walking with the Wounded and Breast Cancer Care. Look out for the documentary that’s being made about their journey, and in the meantime you can read more about the Coxless Crew’s Pacific Ocean Row on their website: http://coxlesscrew.com/the-journey/and on their FB page Coxless Crew 
Monday 4 July
We brought a little flavour of Provence to our Summer Social by making lavender bags, under the creative direction of our Treasurer Lucy Poloniecka. I think you’ll agree they turned out pretty well! It was a lovely relaxed evening, with the chance to chat and get to know our new members, all over a glass of Pimm’s.
Monday 6 June
We were delighted to welcome Jeffrey Archer as our guest speaker this evening. He is the only author ever to have been a number one bestseller in fiction (nineteen times), short stories (four times) and non-fiction (The Prison Diaries). Jeffrey gained a Blue in Athletics at Oxford, was President of the University Athletics Club, and went on to run the 100 yards in 9.6 seconds for Great Britain in 1966. He has served five years in the House of Commons and twenty-three years as a Member of the House of Lords. His latest novel Cometh The Hour, was published in February this year (sixth volume of the No.1 bestselling series, The Clifton Chronicles). Jeffrey is also an amateur auctioneer, conducting around 30 charity auctions a year, and has been married to Dame Mary Archer (who last year was appointed Chairman of The Science Museum) for 50 years. Jeffrey entertained us with stories of his early career, gave us an insight into the publishing world (particularly how tough it is to actually get published), described his writing process, and reminded us what can be achieved with energy and effort. He even had time to sign a few books that members had brought along. It was a great evening, with a fantastic turnout.
Monday 9 May
A great turnout for our May meeting, when our speaker was Kiran Ram a food mood expert and nutrition coach. Kiran talked about her background, and her work in helping people to kick cravings, balance hormones, improve moods and lose weight. She also answered lots of questions from our members on everything from which vitamins to take, to identifying hidden sugars and the benefits of meditation. We also enjoyed samples of her easy to prepare protein snack balls – chilli chocolate with walnuts, and apricot, coconut and cashew…delicious! We all went home feeling motivated to think more carefully about what we eat, and better informed about what our bodies and our minds need to live a healthy and energised life. – You can find out more about Kiran’s work on her website www.kiranram.com
We were also able to offer our members complimentary preview tickets for the Masterpiece Art Fair in June at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, courtesy of one of our 2017 speakers, international art dealer, Tania Buckrell Pos.
Monday 4 April
We had a fantastic meeting this month with the lovely Lizzie Ostrom aka Odette Toilette. A fragrant, fun and informative talk about the world of fragrance, Lizzie introduced us to iconic scents from the 1880s – a time of rich oriental notes, the more complex the better…to the 1900s and the arrival of violets for Valentines…to the 1920s and the introduction of the most desirable perfumes from the big French houses, and in the US after Prohibition a more frivolous champagne bottle shape…to the 1940s when the US was driving fashion with more traditionally masculine undertones of leather…to the 1960s, a time of beautiful glamorous scents with which to ‘catch your man’, and the launch of Kiehl’s Patchouli Oil which embodied a new sense of freedom…and to the 1980s, a time of blockbuster, mass market perfumes from the big fashion houses such as YSL’s Rive Gauche, and Giorgio Beverley Hills..(there may even have been a hint of Hawaiian Tropic in there) as well as the iconic heritage scents from L’artisan Parfumeur.
THANK YOU to all our members who attended – and bought out all the copies of Lizzie’s book, A Century of Scents – and of course to Lizzie, for a great evening.
Monday 7 March
We were treated to an amusing and informative talk on Monday evening by Simon Bainbridge, a researcher and writer, whose talk entitled: Well begun is half done – how to start your novel, took us through some of the great, and not so great, opening sentences of books. What makes a reader turn the page, why do some lines work, and some don’t? We all know the great first line of Pride & Prejudice, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” But do you recognise the book which begins, “Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically.” *? And Simon stretched us with a fiendishly difficult literary quiz afterwards which was won by one of our potential new members. Their prize….a canvas book bag from Waterstone’s!
*Answer – Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence
Monday 1 February
Our February speaker was Alexis Casdagli who gave a wonderfully illustrated and inspiring talk about the exquisite war embroideries her father, A.T. Casdagli made while a Prisoner of War in Germany between June 1941 and April 1945, where he first began sewing. The embroideries, together with his extraordinary war diary, were recently published by Cylix Press as Prouder Than Ever.
Monday 4 January
We were delighted to welcome Dionne James, a Vinyasa and Restorative yoga teacher as our first speaker for 2016. Dionne gave us an introduction to the different types of yoga that are practiced and their benefits, as well as taking us through a couple of meditative breathing techniques. You can see more of Dionne’s work on her website yogabydionne.com
